Generative AI is just machine learning, the same as the magic tool. The difference is in application with one being used for prediction and the other for generation. The two are more alike than they are dissimilar.

I wonder if the artist will get fired for using the magic select tool in Photoshop. That uses AI / machine learning too. It’s literally just using AI to highlight AI generated items.

Every day is a pirate party in the US.

Yeah, I remember the days of renting VCR players and acting like we didn’t already own one so we could play on one and record off the other. I think a lot of this is due to the rise in Internet infrastructure. 15 years ago streaming services wouldn’t have been doable. There was no licensing, just files to download. You’d even get Digital Download codes in your DVD case when buying a movie, so you had multiple copies. Really sad how things are consolidating.

I’m guessing you are extremely young as that is not how digital purchases have historically worked. The concept of “you bought a license to use it” hasn’t been around long. Before that, you would be given an access code to go to a publisher’s website like Disney and download a copy of the content you purchased. It wasn’t tied to any licensing server or authentication system past that point, you just had a digital copy of your purchase.

This is exactly what happened actually in one of Valve’s court cases. It wasn’t that Steam went down, but rather the user was permabanned. When that ban happened he lost access to his game library. However, he had purchased those games so he argued successfully that he had a right to download what he purchased. Valve attempted to argue that they were a subscription service so that they would not have to provide anything to him. In the end since he won the case, he was allowed to download what he purchased. I’m sure that created a weird situation for those publishers and I’m not sure whether or not Steam had to remove the Steam DRM prior to allowing him to download.

That’s not really true. I still have physical media that I’ve purchased as a teenager. That’s not a license key that I own that’s physical media. It was independent of any licensing servers or anything like that. Digital media licensing didn’t really start taking effect until about 2010ish en masse. Prior to that most streaming services like Netflix weren’t really streaming services as internet infrastructure didn’t quite exist to that degree yet.

Valve argued in court that you do not own any title in your library and that they are a subscription based service. That’s not very ethical.

Bare in mind what OP posted was from 4 months ago, but one of the mods mentions it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PiratedGames/comments/14qvyi3/some_controversy_going_on_at_this_sub/

They acknowledge changes were made, so I would take that as confirmation, but that whole group/sub kind of cringey. Posts do get deleted by mods but users also make a lot of claims without any evidence. I get that most of those people don’t have a technical background so its hard to find evidence, but that also maybe is a good reason to make a claim.

EDIT: When I wrote my original comment, I used “Apparently” and “Allegedly” synonymously. I understand if anyone wants to call me out on that, but doesn’t seem right changing what I wrote (seems like that would be covering).

Apparently some mods were running keyloggers on the community.

I think the OP’s question is better worded on the second point as “What is preventing a copyright holder from joining a private tracker?” The answer to that is nothing. In theory, invites would only be handed out to trusted individuals, but the reality is you can just ask for invites and people will give you them.

I’ll add two I didn’t see listed:

1. Cookie AutoDelete
2. Dark Reader

While an interesting idea, there is no evidence that supports that Ad Nauseum adversely impacts reporting metrics. This is due to ad servers all determining click by different methods. It rarely ever aligns. It likely doesn’t impact user targeting either as your behavior still hasn’t really changed and clicks aren’t typically used for that purpose.

You’re better off just running UBlock Origin. Punishing advertisers doesn’t really make any sense anyway. The blame is really on publisher groups and their rampant greed. Auto-clicks just further that.

Pretty much in any case, PII is sent but what exactly gets sent may differ. For example, Revanced I believe just acts as a wrapper for the YouTube platform. YouTube is still collecting information it’s still just you interacting with it just minus the ads. For something like Invidious, YouTube would still be getting information in regards to your IP address in the case of self-hosting or if the connection’s proxied that information, but not the same amount or type of information is being collected.

All cracked software normally still sends data. You would have to block via Windows Firewall (Windows), use a no-inet group and iptables/ufw (Linux), or use a tunnel interface/root access to block (Android).

Sounds like you’ve already maybe ruled out some things, but as far as the port exhaustion question people had, you could prove that with “netstat -s” to see total number of active connections. You might also look in the qbittorrent log file for anything stands out. You might also check your router to make sure you’re not doing some weird port forward or something of that nature.

Kubuntu? Whore.

How funny would it be if they got hit with a GDPR violation?

Those hits relate to DLL injection which would be required for Green Luma to interact with Steam the way it does. Looking at a generic online guide to using GL, the second step even states “Open DLLinjector.exe”, so I’m thinking you’re probably ok. With everything though, take that with a big helping of skepticism. How GL works is sketchy, but that doesn’t mean its not “good” sketchy.

spouses might learn about secret affairs

Threat to your “stability, security and intergrity” = Your wife finds out you’re cheating on her.